Now Go!
A sermon on John 20:19-31 for Easter 2, 2025, Preached at St Paul's, Ashgrove
It was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked because they were afraid…
This passage is read every year on this Sunday, a week after Easter, and there are still Christians huddled behind locked doors in fear of whatever threat may be outside.
And there is always something.
The Trump agenda was handed to him by a group of ultra-right wing “Christians” who gave him their support in return for his promise to implement Project 2025. Our world has been made more hateful and violent by people who take the name of Jesus in vain.
That is enough to make any true Christian want to huddle down under their doona and never leave the house again.
When things like that happen, it is easy to feel that true faith is under attack. It is easy to develop a fortress mentality – to circle the wagons, close ranks, huddle together behind locked doors.
As scary things happen again and again, we need to hear again and again that Jesus breaks through locked doors. When he breaks in, he responds to our fear with the words we always need to hear, “Peace be with you”. But he responds to our fortress mentality with the opposite of what we want to hear. He says, “I’m sending you out there. Don’t worry. I’ll go with you. But you are going. If you are my disciples, you’ll get out there and do what I did.”
That is scary!
The disciples had good reason stay home and lock their doors. They had been seen everywhere with Jesus, and now Jesus had been executed as a political dissident and blasphemer. They had good reason to think they would be next.
And some of their friends were saying that Jesus was alive again. That was frightening too! Had their friends lost their minds?
Or what if Jesus was alive again? They remembered all too clearly how they had abandoned him and distanced themselves from him. Even John had stood by passively and watched him die. If Jesus came back, they could hardly expect him to throw his arms around them and thank them for their loyal support through his darkest hour…
So the disciples were inside, with the doors locked because they were afraid…
And sometimes we are right in there with them.
But no locked door can keep Jesus out. Not theirs. Not ours.
Jesus comes and speaks words of peace into their fear
Words of commissioning and new beginning into their failure
Words of forgiveness into their shame.
And that changed everything for them in an instant.
Right?
Well, no, actually, it didn’t.
On Easter Day they were huddled in fear in a locked a room, and Jesus brought joy, hope and courage. Then a week later…
They were still huddled in fear in a locked room.
Sometimes we think, “If I had just been there to see the risen Lord, then I could never be scared or weak or selfish again.” But there they were, a week after seeing the risen Lord, still locked in their fear. The resurrection of Jesus did change everything in an instant. But it took a while for that change to take complete hold on their hearts and minds and behaviour.
After the resurrection, there is still fear. After the resurrection, there is still doubt. After the resurrection there is still confusion about what to do next.
We gathered to celebrate Easter last week. Yet we still experience fear. We still experience doubt and confusion. We still experience failure.
But none of those things will keep Jesus at a distance or stop him from coming to us and saying: “Peace be with you.”
Peace is what the disciples had been missing as they huddled together in their grief over the past and their anxiety over the future and their fear over the threat outside. Peace. Not the pretend peace of telling each other that everything is OK when it really isn’t. But real peace, because the presence of the risen Jesus among them overturned their grief and anxiety and failure.
As John[1] said in one of his letters: “There is no fear in love. Perfect love drives out fear.”
Those are the options. Will we live in fear or will we live in love? Will we act out of fear or will we act out of love?
For the disciples, Jesus being alive and with them, not condemning them, transferred them from the place of fear to the place of love.
The threat was still there, though. We read in the book of Acts that there were arrests. There were martyrdoms. They had good reason to huddle in fear.
And ever since then, groups of disciples have followed their example… have huddled together behind locked doors because they are afraid.
We are all shamefully aware of particularly bad times in the history of the church… like the inquisition in the middle ages, when church bullies had way more power than the church has ever been able to handle; and huddled disciples were hunted, tortured, killed.
These things are being re-enacted in the US at the moment.
There have been many times and many places where it is completely understandable for disciples to sit huddled behind locked doors because they are afraid.
But even when there is no physical danger it’s easy for us to huddle together for safety with people who think like us. Especially when there seem to be powerful people around us who don’t like us.
We need to understand, though, that those people we fear are also scared, and it is their fear that has turned them into bullies. The people behind Project 2025 are scared by the pace of change in the world. Some of them are rich and powerful and are scared that a more equitable world would require them to give up some of that wealth and power. But that isn’t the only thing they are afraid of. Some of them genuinely believe that God was delighted with the US in the 1960’s, and that most cultural advances since then have made God angrier and angrier. They are terrified of the angry God that they have created in their own image.
And their fear has made them into bullies.
The people who conspired to kill Jesus were bullies, it is true, but in their own way they were also huddled together with their doors locked, for fear of the Romans. What made those Jews dangerous was not their power or their knowledge. If they believed they had power they probably would have acted very differently. What made them dangerous was their fear. They couldn’t allow Jesus to cause trouble because…well… “Who knew what the Romans might do?” And History tells us what the Romans did. They destroyed them.
And so… there the disciples were, huddled together with their doors locked because they were afraid. This wasn’t a very hopeful beginning for the church. It’s hard to imagine any future for them, starting from that point. But then… the risen Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”
Peace be with you.
Not words of condemnation or distance. Not words of challenge, but words of peace. Thomas, who had insisted on seeing evidence before he would believe, wasn’t condemned:
Jesus said to him, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.”
Not a condemnation, but an invitation. And this gave Thomas the opportunity to give the strongest declaration of faith made in this Gospel when he said to Jesus,
“My Lord and my God!”
And it also provided an opportunity for Jesus to bless us:
“Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
We are the disciples who have not seen yet believe. More blessed than the disciples who did see. And we who receive that blessing really should stop criticising Thomas’ doubt and instead should celebrate his faith.
“Peace be with you”, Jesus said.
Peace is what they had been missing as they huddled together in their grief over the past and anxiety over the future and their fear over the theological bullies outside. Peace. Not the pretend peace of telling each other that everything is OK when it really isn’t. But real peace, because the presence of the risen Jesus among them overturned their grief and anxiety.
Before they could leave that room the huddled, frightened disciples needed to hear Jesus say what I see as the most frightening words of the New Testament: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
How did the Father send Jesus?
The Father sent Jesus to overturn the power structures of the world by choosing a life of poverty, homelessness, rejection and celibacy, followed by an excruciatingly painful death.
If Jesus sends us in the same way that the Father send him, he can’t be saying, “Go and prosper. Go and take control. Go and build a dynasty.” He is saying, “Go and suffer. Go and be unpopular. Go and give your life for your enemies. Yes, those very enemies that have you huddled in this room right now.”
These are scary words.
But that’s not all there was to the way the Father sent Jesus. When the Father sent Jesus, the Father didn’t abandon him to his grizzly fate. The Father went with him every step of the way. Throughout the Gospels we see Jesus in constant communication with his Father.
If Jesus sends us in the same way, then Jesus is also promising to be with us – every step of the way. Just as Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit, to empower him to fulfil his calling, so He breathed on the disciples and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
And by the Holy Spirit he was with them. Always. And he is also with us who have come to believe because those disciples did leave that locked room, and did declare Jesus’ resurrection to hostile crowds and puzzled friends, and did live in poverty and powerlessness. They did it, not as individuals acting alone, but as a community. And they could do it, not because of their own capacities but because, as a community, they were filled with the Holy Spirit.
It takes courage to took outward when fear draws us in on ourselves. Let Jesus breath courage into us.
It takes courage to follow the call of love rather than fear. Let Jesus fill us with the Spirit of love and humility and courage.
We still need the risen Jesus to appear among us; to come through the locked doors that cannot keep him out; to breath on us with the Holy Spirit, to go with us into the world, and to speak through each of us as we say to one another...
Peace be with you.
Wherever fear has locked and limited you, May the resurrected Christ break through With peace and liberty; And may we all together Receive His Spirit and Heed his call to go courageously Into a world of fear With nothing in our hands But the love of God Who forms Who sends And who empowers this community And all who follow Jesus. Amen
With Love from Rev Margaret
If you are in Brisbane in May-June 2025 we’d love you to join us as we share hope with our community:
[1] Of course the authors of the Gospel of John and Letters of John may not be the same person. There is overlap in theme and imagery between the Gospel and John 1, so I think there is most likely a connection.
Great sermon! Look forward to hearing it tomorrow!
Another timely and courageous piece as the news from the US continues to cause frustration and fear. PS Technically, I think it’s called ‘Project 2025’. Go well!